Free Republic

Or “How I Learned to Stop Thinking for Myself and Just Trust Republican Jesus.” When I was a kid, I was taught that the Pilgrims fled to the New World to escape religious persecution. Somewhere in there, I learned that we don’t have a national religion and people were free to practice whatever religion they wanted. That was kind of it as far as religion went in my history classes and overall education. Sure, Jews were mentioned in the context of the Holocaust but more as a race than a religion. I did, however, attend Synagogue for a few years...

Pray For the Peace of Jerusalem A New Journey…The Names of God in The Scriptures El Hayyay - GOD of My Life(Psalms 42:8) By day the LORD directs his love, at night his song is with me--a prayer to the God of my life.

Becoming the “Filth of the World” "We have been made as the filth of the world . . ." —1 Corinthians 4:13 These words are not an exaggeration. The only reason they may not be true of us who call ourselves ministers of the gospel is not that Paul forgot or misunderstood the exact truth of them, but that we are too cautious and concerned about our own desires to allow ourselves to become the refuse or “filth of the world.” “Fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ . . .” (Colossians 1:24)...

Having considered the attributes of God which belong to his understanding, as an intelligent Spirit, his knowledge and wisdom, I now proceed to consider his Will, and the sovereignty of it. And shall, 1. Prove that there is a Will in God; for in all intelligent beings there is a will, as well as an understanding; as in angels and men, so in God; as he has an understanding which is infinite and unsearchable; so he has a will, to do what he knows is most fitting to be done. His understanding influences and guides his will, and his will...

Wednesday, January 30, 2013 Are you part of the Great Catholic Migration of the 21st Century? Ever since my post "My Initial Doubts about the Latin Mass" also known affectionately as the "Grover Mass Post," I have been receiving numerous Facebook messages, emails, and comments from Catholics who read this blog and want advice about their current "parish crisis." The messages go like this: My priest tells off-color jokes in the homily. What should I do?The local RCIA instructor taught that contraception is a "personal decision" and when I asked the priest about it, he didn't think it was a big deal.In...

Greek Orthodox Church 1254. What is the Greek Orthodox Church? There are some 16 different Orthodox Churches existing independently of one another. After the first really definite break with Rome when Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople, left the Catholic Church in the ninth century, the Eastern Church followed in the path of all schismatical Churches, splitting up into further divisions. Eight of these separate sections of Orthodoxy have their own Patriarchs, namely, Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, Constantinople, Bulgaria, Rumania, Russia, and Servia. The others lack definite rule. The term "Greek Orthodox Church" is popularly applied to any or all of these Churches;...

February 3, 2013 Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time   Reading 1 Jer 1:4-5, 17-19 The word of the LORD came to me, saying:Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,before you were born I dedicated you,a prophet to the nations I appointed you. But do you gird your loins;stand up and tell themall that I command you.Be not crushed on their account,as though I would leave you crushed before them;for it is I this daywho have made you a fortified city,a pillar of iron, a wall of brass,against the whole land:against Judah’s kings and princes,against its priests and...

The horror, the sordidness of the awful abuse of children by figures of spiritual authority is not much assuaged by current Archbishop Jose Gomez relieving Cardinal Mahony of "all public duties" after mounting evidence showed he shielded pedophile priests from law enforcement. So Mahony won't be overseeing the Sacrament of Confirmation at Our Lady of the Angels anytime soon. But he is not only still a priest who can perform Mass - he is still one of the 120 cardinals who form the leadership of a church with more than 1.1 billion adherents worldwide, in a line going back to...

A response to my column, “Catholics Defy ObamaCare! What About Fundamentalist Churches and Universities?” reveals a lack of understanding many people have as to the responsibility of Christians in the face of government intrusion into their ministries. Most people obviously do not understand what all historians have known for two thousand years. The second century church leader, Tertullian observed, "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church." Pagans (all non-Christians) observed that Christians who willingly went to their deaths influenced numerous unbelievers to trust Christ who then themselves became martyrs. My critic sarcastically asked, "And how much...

The video below shows “American tacky” in all its glory. A man who loved Burger King dies and his family honors him by taking the funeral procession through the Burger King “drive thru.” Free Burgers for all on the way to the Cemetery, hearse and all.I’ve seen worse, I have to admit. Probably at the top of the list is and “Funeral Home Drive- thru” where the deceased is actually on display in a window. No need to get out of your car and actually visit the family. No, that’s too much trouble and lacks the kind of convenience we...

Archbishop Jose H. Gomez. Credit: Patrick Novecosky/Legatus. Los Angeles, Calif., Feb 1, 2013 / 05:22 pm (CNA).- Archbishop José Gomez's decision to relieve Cardinal Roger Mahony and Bishop Thomas Curry of their duties in the L.A. archdiocese is being welcomed as “the best possible thing he could have done.” “The archbishop has in one stroke, opened up the doors and let in the sunlight,” historian and author Charles Coulombe told CNA Feb. 1. “It is an enormously difficult task he has taken on...it would have been the case no matter what he did.” “However, he handled it brilliantly, wisely,...

His Eminence and Hizzoner, by John Cardinal O'Connor and Mayor Edward I. KochJune 1989 New York City, N.Y., Feb 1, 2013 / 07:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Cardinal Timothy Dolan and Cardinal Edward Egan responded to the death of New York City Mayor Ed Koch with praise for the Jewish official's collaboration and friendship with Catholics. “He will have special place in my prayers, and in those of the Catholic community he loved and worked closely with, this weekend,” said Cardinal Dolan, who has been Archbishop of New York since 2009. Cardinal Dolan said that as a young priest in...

Super Bowl XLVII Coaches Press Conference. Credit: Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images Sport/Getty Images. San Francisco, Calif., Feb 2, 2013 / 06:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Brothers John and Jim Harbaugh, coaches of the Baltimore Ravens and San Francisco 49ers, respectively, have seen their fair share of sibling rivalry – but this weekend's Super Bowl should prove to be a contest like no other. The last time the brothers squared off on the same field was Thanksgiving of 2011 where John led his Baltimore Ravens to a victory over Jim’s San Francisco 49ers, while at the same time putting an end to...

Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare. Give ear and come to me; hear me, that your soul may live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, my faithful love promised to David. (Isaiah 55:1-3)

My surviving Grandfather on my mothers side is knocking at the Lords door. It will be any time now. He was born march 13 1912, and he is passing at the house he retired in, in the mountains, with family, and never spent any time in hospitals and such.

Hours after Cardinal Roger Mahony's successor announced that the retired LA prelate would "no longer have any administrative or public duties" in the nation's largest diocese after the release of damning sex-abuse files from early in Mahony's quarter-century tenure, it should come as little surprise that the "born fighter" wouldn't take Archbishop José Gomez's blockbuster move quietly. At 11.30am Pacific, the cardinal posted a letter he wrote to Gomez in response on his blog.  Dated today, below is the full text, with Mahony's preceding explanatory note. *    *    * Friends in Christ,This morning I sent this letter to Archbishop Jose...

In 1978, Soviet geologists prospecting in the wilds of Siberia discovered a family of six, lost in the taigaSiberian summers do not last long. The snows linger into May, and the cold weather returns again during September, freezing the taiga into a still life awesome in its desolation: endless miles of straggly pine and birch forests scattered with sleeping bears and hungry wolves; steep-sided mountains; white-water rivers that pour in torrents through the valleys; a hundred thousand icy bogs. This forest is the last and greatest of Earth's wildernesses. It stretches from the furthest tip of Russia's arctic regions as...

Pray For the Peace of Jerusalem A New Journey…The Names of God in The Scriptures El Hay - The Living GOD(Joshua 3:10, Jeremiah 23:36, Daniel 3:26) This is how you will know that the living God is among you and that he will certainly drive out before you the Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Amorites and Jebusites.

February 2, 2013 Feast of the Presentation of the Lord   Reading 1 Mal 3:1-4 Thus says the Lord God:Lo, I am sending my messengerto prepare the way before me;And suddenly there will come to the templethe LORD whom you seek,And the messenger of the covenant whom you desire.Yes, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts.But who will endure the day of his coming?And who can stand when he appears?For he is like the refiner’s fire,or like the fuller’s lye.He will sit refining and purifying silver,and he will purify the sons of Levi,Refining them like gold or like silverthat...

Can Paul VI be beatified? On December 20, 2012, Benedict XVI authorized the Congregation for the Causes of Saints to promulgate a decree recognizing the “heroic virtues” of Paul VI, pope from 1963 to 1978. Now only a miracle obtained through the intercession of Paul VI is necessary to proceed to his beatification. Apparently the postulator for his cause, Fr. Antonio Marrazzo, has already chosen a case to present to the medical commission, the cure of an unborn child diagnosed with severe malformation. According to Andrea Tornielli of La Stampa’s Vatican Insider, the beatification could take place in 2013. Paul...